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CHAPTER 1
Book I
i
Late one October afternoon in the year 1921, a shabby young man gazed with fixed intensity through the window of a third-class compartment in the almost empty train labouring up the Penowell valley from Swansea. All that day Manson had travelled from the North, changing at Carlisle and Shrewsbury, yet the final stage of his tedious journey to South Wales found him strung to a still greater excitement by the prospects of his post, the first of his medical career, in this strange, disfigured country.
Outside, a heavy rainstorm came blinding down between the mountains which rose on either side of the single railway track. The mountain tops were hidden in a grey waste of sky, but their sides, scarred by ore workings, fell black and desolate, blemished by great heaps of slag on which a few dirty sheep wandered in vain hope of pasture. No bush, no blade of vegetation was visible. The trees, seen in the fading light, were gaunt and stunted spectres. At a bend of the line the red glare of a foundry flashed into sight, illuminating a score of workmen stripped to the waist, their torsos straining, arms upraised to strike. Though the scene was swiftly lost behind the huddled top gear of a mine, a sense of power persisted, tense and vivid. Manson drew a long breath. He felt an answering surge of effort, a sudden overwhelming exhilaration springing from the hope and promise of the future.
Darkness had fallen, emphasizing the strangeness and remoteness of the scene when, half an hour later, the engine panted into Blaenelly, the end township of the Valley, and the terminus of the line. He had arrived at last. Gripping his bag, Manson leaped from the train and walked quickly down the platform, searching eagerly for some sign of welcome. At the station exit, beneath a wind-blown lamp, a yellow-faced old man in a square hat and a long nightshirt of a mackintosh stood waiting. He inspected Manson with a jaundiced eye and his voice, when it came, was reluctant.
"You Doctor Page's new assistant?"
"That's right. Manson. Andrew Manson is the name."
"Huh! Mine's Thomas; 'Old Thomas' they mostly call me, dang 'em! I got the gig here. Set in — unless you'd rayther swim."
Manson slung his bag up and climbed into the battered gig behind a tall, angular black horse. Thomas followed, took the reins and addressed the horse.
"Hue-up, Taffy!" he said.
They drove off through the town, which, though Andrew tried keenly to discern its outline, presented in the slashing rain no more than a blurred huddle of low grey houses ranged beneath the high and ever-present mountains. For several minutes the old groom did not speak, but continued to dart pessimistic glances at Andrew from beneath the dripping brim of his hat. He bore no resemblance to the smart coachman of a successful doctor, but was, on the contrary, wizened and slovenly, and all the time he gave off a peculiar yet powerful odour of stale cooking-fat.
At last he said: "Only jest got your parchment, eh?"
Andrew nodded.
"I knowed it." Old Thomas spat. His triumph made him more gravely communicative. "Last assistant went ten days ago. Mostly they don't stop."
"Why?" Despite his nervousness, Andrew smiled.
"Work's too hard for one thing, I reckon."
"And for another?"
"You'll find out!" A moment later, as a guide might indicate a fine cathedral, Thomas lifted his whip and pointed to the end of a row of houses where, from a small lighted doorway, a cloud of steam was emerging. "See that! That there's the missus and my chip petato shop. We fry twice a week. Wet fish." A secret amusement twitched his long upper lip. "Reckon you might want to know, shortly."
Here the main street ended and, turning up a short uneven side road, they boggled across a piece of waste ground, and entered the narrow drive of a house which stood isolated from the adjacent rows behind three monkey-puzzle trees. On the gate was the name BRYNGOWER.
"This is us," said Thomas, pulling up the horse.
Andrew descended. The next minute, while he was gathering himself for the ordeal of his entrance, the front door was flung open and he was in the lighted hall being welcomed effusively by a short, plump, smiling woman of about forty with a shining face and bright bold twinkling eyes.
"Well! Well! This must be Doctor Manson. Come in, my dee-ar, come in. I'm the Doctor's wife, Mrs. Page. I do hope you didn't have a tryin' journey. I am pleased to see you. I been out my mind, nearly, since that last awful feller we had left us. You ought to have seen him. He was a waster if ever I met one, I can tell you. Oh! But never mind. It's all right now you're here. Come along, I'll show you to your room myself."
Upstairs, Andrew's room was a small camsiled apartment with a brass bed, a yellow varnished chest of drawers, and a bamboo table bearing a basin and ewer.
Glancing round it, while her black button eyes searched his face, he said with anxious politeness: "This looks very comfortable, Mrs. Page."
"Yes, indeed." She smiled and patted his shoulder maternally. "You'll do famous here, my dee-ar. You treat me right and I'll treat you right. I can't say fairer nor that, can I? Now come along before you're a minute older and meet Doctor." She paused, her gaze still questioning his, her tone striving to be offhand. "I don't know if I said so in my letter but, as a matter of fact — Doctor 'asn't been too well, lately."
Andrew looked at her in sudden surprise.
"Oh, it's nothing much," she went on quickly, before he could speak. "He's been laid up a few weeks. But he'll soon be all right. Make no mistake about that."
Perplexed, Andrew followed her to the end of the passage, where she threw open a door, exclaiming blithely: —
"Here's Doctor Manson, Edward — our new assistant. He's come to say 'ow do."
As Andrew went into the room, a long fustily furnished bedroom with chenille curtains closely drawn and a small fire burning in the grate, Edward Page turned slowly upon the bed, seeming to do so by a great effort. He was a big, bony man of perhaps sixty with harshly lined features and tired, luminous eyes. His whole expression was stamped with suffering and a kind of weary patience. And there was something more. The light of the oil lamp, falling across the pillow, revealed one half of his face expressionless and waxen. The left side of his body was equally paralyzed and his left hand, which lay upon the patchwork counterpane, was contracted to a shiny cone.
Observing these signs of a severe and far from recent stroke, Andrew was conscious of a sudden shock of dismay. There was an odd silence.
"I hope you'll like it here," Doctor Page remarked at length, speaking slowly and with difficulty, slurring his words a little. "I hope you'll find the practice won't be too much for you. You're very young."
"I'm twenty-four, sir," Andrew answered awkwardly. "I know this is the first job I've had, and all that — but I'm not afraid of work."
"There, now!" Mrs. Page beamed. "Didn't I tell you, Edward, we'd be lucky with our next one?"
An even deeper immobility settled on Page's face. He gazed at Andrew. Then his interest seemed to fade.
He said in a tired voice: "I hope you'll stay."
"My goodness gracious!" cried Mrs. Page. "What a thing to say!" She turned to Andrew, smilingly and apologetic. "It's only because he's a morsel down to-day. But he'll soon be up and doing again. Won't you, ducky?" Bending, she kissed her husband heartily. "There now! I'll send your supper up by Annie whenever we've 'ad ours."
Page did not answer. The stony look on his one-sided face made his mouth seem twisted. His good hand strayed to the book that lay on the table beside his bed. Andrew saw that it was entitled The Wild Birds of Europe. Even before the paralyzed man began to read he felt himself dismissed.
As Andrew went down to supper his thoughts were painfully confused. He had applied for this assistantship in answer to an advertisement in the Lancet. Yet in the correspondence, conducted at this end by Mrs. Page, which had led to his securing the post, there had been no mention whatsoever of Doctor Page's illness. But Page was ill; there could be no question of the gravity of the cerebral haemorrhage which had incapacitated him. It would be months before he was fit for work, if, indeed, he were ever fit for work again.
With an effort Andrew put the puzzle from his mind. He was young, strong, and had no objection to the extra work in which Page's illness might involve him. Indeed, in his enthusiasm, he yearned for an avalanche of calls.
"You're lucky, my dee-ar," remarked Mrs. Page brightly as she bustled into the dining room. "You can have your bit of snap straight off to-night. No surgery. Dai Jenkins done it."
"Dai Jenkins?"
"He's our dispenser," Mrs. Page threw out casually. "A handy little feller. An' willin' too. 'Doc' Jenkins some folks even call him, though of course he's not to be compared in the same breath with Doctor Page. He's done the surgery and visits also, these last ten days."
Andrew stared at her in fresh concern. All that he had been told, all the warnings he had received regarding the questionable ways of practice in these remote Welsh Valleys, flashed into his recollection. Again it cost him an effort to be silent.
Mrs. Page sat at the head of the table with her back to the fire. When she had wedged herself comfortably into her chair with a cushion she sighed in pleasant anticipation and tinkled the little cowbell in front of her. A middle-aged servant with a pale, well-scrubbed face brought in the supper, stealing a glance at Andrew as she entered.
"Come along, Annie," cried Mrs. Page, buttering a wedge of soft bread and stuffing it in her mouth. "This is Doctor Manson."
Annie did not answer. She served Andrew in a contained, silent fashion with a thin slice of cold boiled brisket. For Mrs. Page, however, there was a hot beefsteak and onions with a pint bottle of oatmeal stout. As the doctor's wife lifted the cover from her special dish and cut into the juicy meat, her teeth watering in expectation, she explained: —
"I didn't have much lunch, Doctor. Besides, I got to watch my diet. It's the blood. I have to take a drop of porter for the blood."
Andrew chewed his stringy brisket and drank cold water determinedly. After a momentary indignation his main difficulty lay with his own sense of humour. Her pretence of invalidism was so blatant he had to struggle to conquer a wild impulse to laugh.
During the meal Mrs. Page ate freely but said little. At length, sopping up the gravy with her bread, she finished her steak, smacked her lips over the last of the stout, and lay back in her chair, breathing a trifle heavily, her round little cheeks flushed and shiny. Now she seemed disposed to linger at table, inclined to confidences — perhaps trying, in her own bold way, to sum Manson up.
Studying him, she saw a spare and gawky youngster, dark, rather tensely drawn, with high cheekbones, a fine jaw and blue eyes. These eyes, when he raised them, were, despite the nervous tensity of his brow, extraordinarily steady and inquiring. Although Blodwen Page knew nothing of it, she was looking at a Celtic type. Though she admitted the vigour and alert intelligence in Andrew's face, what pleased her most of all was his acceptance, without demur, of that scanty cut from the three-days-old heel of brisket. She reflected that, though he looked hungry, he might not be hard to feed.
"I'm sure we'll get on famous, you and me," she again declared genially, picking her teeth with a hairpin. "I do need a bit o' luck for a change." Mellowed, she told him of her troubles, and sketched a vague outline of the practice and its position. "It's been awful, my dee-ar. You don't know. What with Doctor Page's illness, wicked bad assistants, nothin' comin' in and everythin' goin' out — well! you wouldn't believe it! And the job I've 'ad to keep the manager and mine officials sweet — it's them the practice money comes through — what there is of it," she added hurriedly. "You see, the way they work things in Blaenelly is like this: the Company has three doctors on its list, though mind you Doctor Page is far and away the cleverest doctor of the lot. And besides — the time he's been 'ere! Nearly thirty years and more; that's something, I should think! Well, then, these doctors can have as many assistants as they like, — Doctor Page has you, and Doctor Lewis has a would-be feller called Denny, — but the assistants don't ever get on the Company's list. Anyway, as I was sayin', the Company deducts so much from every man's wages they employ at the mines and the quarries, and pays that out to the listed doctors according to 'ow many of the men signs on with them."
She broke off under the strain of her illiteracy and an overloaded stomach.
"I think I see how the system works, Mrs. Page."
"Well, then!" She heaved out her jolly laugh. "You don't have to bother about it no more. All you got to remember is that you're workin' for Doctor Page. That's the main thing, Doctor. Just remember you're workin' for Doctor Page and you and poor little me'll get on a treat."
It seemed to Manson, silent and observant, that she tried at the same time to excite his pity and to establish her authority over him, all beneath that manner of breezy affability. Perhaps she felt she had unbent too far. With a glance at the clock, she straightened herself, restored the hairpin to her greasy black hair. Then she rose. Her voice was different, almost peremptory.
"By the way, there's a call for Number 7 Glydar Place. It come in the back of five o'clock. You better do it straight away."
ii
Andrew went out to the call immediately, with a queer sensation, almost of relief. He was glad of the opportunity to disentangle himself from the curious and conflicting emotions stirred up by his arrival at Bryngower. Already he had a glimmer of a suspicion as to how matters stood and of how he would be made use of by Blodwen Page to run the practice for his disabled principal. It was a strange situation, and very different from any romantic picture which his fancy might have painted. Yet, after all, his work was the important thing; beside it all else was trivial. He longed to begin it. Insensibly he hastened his pace, taut with anticipation, exulting in the realization — this, this was his first case.
It was still raining when he crossed the smeary blackness of the waste land and struck along Chapel Street in the direction vaguely indicated by Mrs. Page. Darkly, as he traversed it, the town took shape before him. Shops and chapels — Zion, Capel, Hebron, Bethel, Bethesda; he passed a round dozen of them — then the big Cooperative Stores, and a branch of the Western Counties Bank, all lining the main thoroughfare, lying deep in the bed of the Valley. The sense of being buried, far down in this cleft of the mountains, was singularly oppressive. There were few people about. At right angles, reaching up a short distance on either side of Chapel Street, were rows and rows of blue-roofed workers' houses. And, beyond, at the head of the gorge, beneath a glow that spread like a great fan into the opaque sky, the Blaenelly Haematite Mine and Ore Works.
He reached 7 Glydar Place, knocked breathlessly upon the door, and was at once admitted to the kitchen, where, in a recessed bed, the patient lay. She was a young woman, wife of a steel puddler named Williams, and as he approached the bedside with a fast-beating heart he felt, overwhelmingly, the significance of this, the real starting-point of his life. How often had he envisaged it as, in a crowd of students, he had watched a demonstration in Professor Lamplough's wards! Now there was no sustaining crowd, no easy exposition. He was alone, confronted by a case which he must diagnose and treat unaided. All at once, with a quick pang, he was conscious of his nervousness, his inexperience, his complete unpreparedness, for such a task.
While the husband stood by in the cramped, ill-lit stone-floored room, Andrew Manson examined the patient with scrupulous care. There was no doubt about it, she was ill. She complained that her head ached intolerably. Temperature, pulse, tongue, they all spoke of trouble, serious trouble. What was it? Andrew asked himself that question with a strained intensity as he went over her again. His first case. Oh, he knew that he was overanxious! But suppose he made an error, a frightful blunder? And worse — suppose he found himself unable to make a diagnosis? He had missed nothing. Nothing. Yet he still found himself struggling towards some solution of the problem, striving to group the symptoms under the heading of some recognized disease. At last, aware that he could protract his investigation no longer, he straightened himself slowly, folding up his stethoscope, fumbling for words.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Citadel"
by .
Copyright © 2015 A.J. Cronin.
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